


The Blind Tigress

by CalamityHeart



Category: Naruto
Genre: Costume Parties & Masquerades, F/M, Paranoia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-31
Updated: 2014-10-31
Packaged: 2018-02-23 07:50:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2540051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CalamityHeart/pseuds/CalamityHeart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Hokage's annual costume party is tonight, and Naruto, per eager suggestion from Hinata, decides to go for the first time. Unlike previous years, Tsunade has decided on a theme for the party, specifically, masks. As creepy as Naruto finds masks, he takes Hinata's word for it that this event will be fun, and tries his best to relax and enjoy it. An extremely difficult feat, made even more nerve-wracking as Naruto finds himself being targeted for some reason by a strange woman wearing a mask with no eyeholes. It's going to be a long night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. It'll Be Fun

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, everyone! So, this is just a short little side thing I felt inspired to do and share with you all. I don't plan for this to be very long, or take very long to get to the juicy parts. :P I came up with the idea a few days ago after a talk with a friend, and was just dying to show it somewhere. I plan for the chapters to be short, but if you'd prefer I make them a bit longer, just let me know and I'll try to accommodate! Enjoy!

He was the head of the spear that battled to save the ninja world. He fearlessly took on a physical god, and for a time, he had to do it alone. He’s teetered on the precipice of death countless times over the course of his short life, and has attained a near-insurmountable level of power. And now, he’s nervous about attending a masquerade ball. Go fucking figure.

It’s something of a tradition for the Hokage to host events like this in their home every year at about this time, something that Naruto, being the antisocial ragamuffin that he was in his youth, never really cared for attending, and would often overhear things about afterwards. Usually, it’s an unthemed little party where people can dress up in whatever costumes they want, but Tsunade decided this year to make masks a theme for the ball.

It was Hinata who recommended that he go this year, and she even went so far as to provide a fancy little orange-and-silver fox-like half-mask the day prior for him to wear. She assured him that he’d enjoy it, and Naruto knew that if there was anyone whose words he could put faith in, it was Hinata. But the more he thought about it, even as he readied himself to go, the less sure he was that this would be as fun as she suggested.

These cryptically forewarning thoughts presently keep Naruto held at bay before the entrance to the Hokage Residence. His mask was on, and as far as he could tell, he looked nice enough in his black suit and orange tie. The soothing sounds of flute music and light drumming drew his ears in, but the rest of him was rigid with tension for several moments.

_It’ll be fun, Naruto._

He closes his eyes and runs a scarred hand through his unusually-kempt hair as he reflect on Hinata’s words, letting the echoed memory of her soft voice try and coax him into loosening up.

_I promise._

With a deep sigh, Naruto does his best to let the nerves melt away, and urges his body forward, one step at a time into Tsunade’s home, following the music until he finds himself in a vast ballroom among a crowd of frozen, masked faces. The majority of guests at the ball had on half-masks like he did, of various shapes and colors, and with sometimes stunning, flashy decorations like feathers, frills or tiny gold or silver chains, and the outfits and costumes he spotted were no less extravagant and gaudy. A few of the guests walked around with masks that concealed their face completely, like ANBU. One or two wore masks that simulated expressions like happiness, but the vast majority of masks were completely stoic.

Naruto takes one look around, finding no wonder in how he could have thought this would be a bit weird. He forgot just how _creepy_ masks are. Seeing people that move their bodies and make idle gestures as if their talking, but their face never changing… it was surreal to him. Even with half-masks, it was weird. Almost all expression comes from the eyes and the eyebrows. With those hidden, everyone around Naruto looks uncomfortably uncanny.

_It’ll be fun, Naruto._

This line runs over and over again through Naruto’s head as he tries to ease that tickle in his spine that made the hairs on his nape rise, but he can’t relax. He can’t shake the feeling that he’s being watched from somewhere. Shutting out the noise around him for a moment, he slowly turns his head back and forth a few times as he lingers near the entrance. Eventually, he spots her, several feet away, very close to one corner of the room.

There a woman stands, with pale fair skin and silverish-white hair that has a single gloomy streak of blue on her right side. She wore a short white kimono with its sleeves ending at the elbow and the hem ending just above her knees. Her attire was trimmed light blue, and similar-colored stripes were visible along the short sleeves, and even painted along the sides of her bare lower legs. All twenty neatly-trimmed nails were painted a glossy light blue, and the shimmering hue was even present on her soft, small, smiling lips.

The woman’s half-mask is what entrances and unnerves Naruto all at the same time. Its base is silver, and it is dramatically stylized with light-blue trim and stripes just like her attire, giving her the appearance of an almost ghostly white tigress. What makes this woman’s appearance stand out, however, is that her mask has no visible eyeholes. The way that her mask's stripes are placed and patterned, it's obvious where the eyeholes are _supposed_ to be, but there’s only silver base. As far as Naruto knows, the woman he’s looking at is completely blind. And yet, her head is turned as if she’s looking right back at him.

That cold shiver tickles Naruto’s back again, and it takes him a moment to tear his eyes away and start to walk forward, trying to pretend he never noticed her there. He goes for a few steps, walking, whistling, trying to catch a couple of words from the nearby conversations to distract himself. Eventually, he has no choice, and turns his head to look back at where he’d seen her, to find out if she was still… ‘watching’ him. Naruto blinks as he sees that the space where that odd woman was once standing was now empty, and as he looks around quickly, he finds that she’s nowhere to be found. That bad feeling returns.

“Jeez…” he mutters to himself, sighing and nervously scratching the back of his neck.

 _It’ll be fun, Naruto,_ she said… Whatever faith he had left in those words was vanishing quickly.


	2. Do I Know You?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Second chapter up! Not too sure how many chapters there will be yet. As soon as I know for sure, I'll make note of it!

The more Naruto walked around the edges of the festive ballroom in Tsunade's dwelling, peering about at the colorful lights and listening to the lively music and the many laughs and animated words people shared with one another, the more comfortable he became, albeit quite slowly. He started out walking slowly about with his shoulders raised almost to his ears, but after a moment, he adopted a curious, casual little stroll, almost smiling.

As much as he wanted to relax, though, the image of that ghostly tiger-woman would not let him. Her eyeless face, her palish appearance, the odd sense of… something… that he felt when he looked at her, clung to his back and breathed hotly against his neck. Every several moments, he felt as if he'd see her right behind him if he turned around. Paranoia was like an unfamiliar illness to Naruto. He barely knew a thing about how to handle it.

This looming not-dread, however, wasn't enough of a problem for him to want to leave. At least not yet. He reaches his hand up to adjust his mask when he suddenly feels a cold hand on his shoulder.

"Do we kn-"

"GYAAAGH!"

Naruto wasn't quite in the mood for surprises. However, he takes this shock a lot better than he probably could have. Reflex hijacks his body, and Naruto spins around and grabs the wrist touching his shoulder, quickly whirling the yelping woman toward the wall next to them and pinning her captured wrist above her head with one hand, and firmly pressing her bare shoulder into the wall with the other.

"Who are y-" Naruto starts to demand. He pauses mid-syllable as he realizes this isn't the woman he thought it was. She was wrapped in a sleeveless, feathery purple tube garment that ends just below the middle of her thigh and stunning, glittery high heels of a similar color. Her milky-blonde hair was done up in a side ponytail and gathered into a fancy cyclone of curls over her right shoulder.

She wore a glittery purple half-mask trimmed with gold and stylized similar to a birds, with fluffy feathers fanned out along its left side. The eyes faintly visible behind the mask were cool blue, and wide with surprise, and the little of her cheeks that the mask exposed was flushed pink with sudden shock.

"…Ino? Is that you?"

Ino quickly recovers her bearings and gives Naruto a frown, a fierce glare, and a swift, hard knee right into his crotch. Naruto nearly retches, his hands releasing Ino in order to reflexively reach to grab himself and reel over in pain. Not a moment later, Naruto chokes out another panicked gag as he feels an impossibly strong arm curl right around his neck and pull him up into a fierce chokehold. She could easily remove his head if she wanted to.

"Nothing to see here!" Sakura's voice chuckles innocently, and Naruto's eyes peer around, discovering quite a lot of odd looks in their direction. "Nothing wrong, nothing wrong! Just a slight misunderstanding~ He's very sorry for the disturbance, _aren't you, Naruto…?_ "

His face pales in fear and breathlessness as the cherry-scented threat of death growls right into his ear, and with the inability to nod, he can only give Sakura a weak smile and a thumbs-up. A short, choked whine manages to escape as Sakura begins to drag him quickly across the room with Ino close behind, bringing him over to an empty corner of the party and throwing him down into one of the chairs.

Naruto gasps for breath and coughs for a few moments, groaning and clutching his sore privates as he tries to get himself together before looking up at the two women.

Sakura's arms were crossed over her chest, and her green eyes smoldered with annoyance behind the red and hot-pink phoenix mask over her eyes. She wore a cherry-red furisode, its iconic long sleeves hanging all the way down to her waist. Small depictions of cherry blossoms were peppered all over the garment below its hot-pink sash and all across its sleeves. Sakura's candy-pink hair was swept back out of her face and held in a very small tail by a single red bead. She was just as frightening to Naruto as she was beautiful.

"What the hell's gotten into you, Naruto?" Ino demands. "Why are you so on edge?"

He takes a moment to breathe in deeply and fix his hair. "I'm sorry, Ino… I'm just kinda freaked out, is all. You surprised me."

"Freaked out about what? You act like you saw a ghost just now."

"I did! …Or, I think so! Have you seen a weird lady around here with an eyeless tiger mask or something?"

The two women blink and look at each other for a moment. "I haven't," Sakura says. "And why would someone walk around wearing a mask with no eyeholes anyway? That's just ridiculous; maybe you're seeing things."

Naruto sighs and lifts his mask for a moment to rub his face. "I don't know. Maybe I- Hey!" Naruto yelps as Sakura immediately pulls his mask back down and slaps his hand away.

"You don't remove your mask until midnight, you goof. You've never been to something like this before, have you?" When Naruto shakes his head, Sakura continues. "What made you want to come, anyway?"

"Eh… Hinata invited me. She told me it'd be fun. Oh! You haven't seen _her_ around, have you?"

Again, Sakura and Ino glance at each other, and Ino shrugs while Sakura speaks. "I've seen her sister. I assume she came with Hinata, so maybe she knows where she is."

"Ah... Well, can you tell me where she is?" Naruto asks, getting his hopes up.

"No!"

Naruto's hope deflates and he goes limp in his chair, giving Sakura a confused look.

"Half the fun of a masquerade is going around the ballroom and trying to find people that you recognize. Even though you made it a bit neater, the two of us saw your bright yellow head from all the way across the room. I'm sure you're perceptive enough to go and hunt her down. Just remember, it's proper etiquette to ask, 'Do I know you?' when approaching someone. And don't be rude! Whether they say 'No, indeed,' or 'Yes, indeed,' talk to them!"

Not wanting to upset Sakura again, Naruto quickly nods at all of her instruction, yelping again as she gives him a little slap to the side of the head. "And no more throwing women against the wall. Lady Tsunade put me in charge of hosting the floor, and if you cause any more disturbances, I'm going to be wearing your _face_ like a mask. Are we clear?"

A bead of sweat, or perhaps a fearful tear, drips out from beneath Naruto's mask as he nods his head quickly and watches Sakura and Ino depart. He sighs and scratches his head as he looks around for a clock, finally spotting one on the wall behind him, and the ghastly eyeless-masked woman standing right underneath it.

Naruto was never good at reading old-fashioned hand clocks without the numbers on it, and it takes him a minute to guesstimate that it was close to ten o'clock, before gasping loudly in shock and falling right out of his chair. He scrambles to his feet as quickly as possible, but once again, she's gone without a trace as quickly as she appeared, and Naruto stares at the space she occupied literally a second and a half ago, now hauntingly empty.

For a brief moment, Naruto thinks he hears a soft giggle from somewhere far away.

"Nope. Nope. Nope…" he murmurs agitatedly to himself as he jams his hands into the pockets of his slacks and begins to power-walk around the ballroom, desperately searching for Hanabi now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for reading, you guys!
> 
> ~M.H.C~
> 
> May all your  
> Hearts beat with  
> Calamity!
> 
> Till next time!


	3. Red Brandy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know much about alcohol, so if I flubbed something here, I apologize! n_n

He was back to doing what he’d been doing before his encounter with Ino and Sakura, walking about along the perimeter of the ballroom, looking around at the masked faces, listening to the animated, cheery voices. It’s not with curiosity, this time, but a nervous type of panic. He’s seen the weird woman twice now, and has no idea what to make of her other than she seems to like being weird… It’s not doing well for Naruto’s impression of this ball.

He wanders about, half-distracted by his quarreling inner thoughts, part of him telling him to leave now and spare himself any further creepiness, and part of him wanting to just find Hinata and hang around her for the evening, hoping her presence might stave off the ghost of a woman that was haunting him. Hell, he was considering looking around for Ino and Sakura again and hoping that they’d let him stick around them…

He covers one side of the room with no sign of Hanabi anywhere nearby, and stops for a few moments to stare longingly over at a nearby refreshment table holding several bowls full of colorful liquids. Deciding he could do with a little drink to calm his nerves, he turns back around to head in that direction, his heart tensing for a moment as he fully expected the blind tigress to be right behind him. He relaxes with a sigh as he sees no one, and decides against staying around to tempt fate any longer.

Naruto steps slowly around the refreshment table for a few moments, thinking briefly before deciding on fruit punch, ladling some into a small cup and taking a very long sip. He blinks for a couple of moments at the peculiar taste, then looks to his side as someone steps up to lean a hip against the table and stare out at the open, crowded ballroom, and Naruto can’t help but stare for a brief moment. Compared to everyone else’s elaborate costumes and fancy get-ups, the guy next to his seems rather casual and plain, a deer-like half-mask complete with antlers at the corners over his face.

“Eh… Do I know you?” Naruto asks. He recognizes him after a few moments, but decides to follow along with Sakura’s instructions on etiquette.

“Yes, indeed,” the man replies with a smirk.

“Shikamaru?”

“You got it. Didn’t think you’d be here, Naruto,” Shikamaru says plainly, turning his head to face Naruto and slightly tilting up his mask so his raised eyebrow is visible for a moment. Naruto chuckles and tries to relax as much as possible, relieved to find someone else he knew here.

“Could say the same for you. Never thought you were the lively party type.”

“I’m not,” Shikamaru sighs, and leaves it at that, pulling his mask down again. “You come here with anyone?”

Naruto looks around quickly and rubs the back of his neck. “Well, no… But… You haven’t seen Hinata anywhere around here, have you? Or her sister?”

“Nope. Are you trying to get _away_ from them or something? You’re looking nervous, man.”

Naruto shakes his head. “No, no, it’s not that… I think I’m being stalked by a ghost.”

Shikamaru is silent for a very long few moments before he chuckles shortly. “A ghost, Naruto? Really? Of all the things to be afraid of, ghosts?”

“She’s _freaky!_ ” Naruto insists, quickly drinking the rest of his fruit punch, pleasantly surprised by the little bit of kick it has as he refills the cup and drinks again. “Guh… She’s got a mask with no eyes, and she appears and disappears! I think masks are kinda creepy to start with, but Hinata…” He drinks again, and Shikamaru frowns. “… Eh…. Hinata told me that… that this would be fun and *hic* and...”

Naruto trails off, forgetting his thought all of a sudden, and Shikamaru puts a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t be a baby and freak out. Next time she shows up, wave or something. You’re probably being teased or something. …Jeez, Naruto, did you at least eat something, first? You’re hitting that red brandy pretty hard.”

“Red _what?!”_ Naruto nearly trips standing still, staring at his glass. “This is alcohol?! I thought it was *hic* some… fancy fruit punch!”

Immediately, he puts the drink down and tries to center himself. If he’d known, he wouldn’t have guzzled down a cup and a half so quickly… Shaking his head, he steps away from the table and opens his eyes to a brief drunken fog before he’s able to focus… and spots a waterfall of dark brown hair several yards away. Hanabi.

“Ah! I’ve gotta go, Shikamaru!” Naruto says, stepping away from the refreshment table and starting to follow after Hanabi as best as he can. He nearly stumbles when he first starts off, and Shikamaru says something that he doesn’t catch, but Naruto’s fine. As far as he tells himself. He centers himself again, regains his focus, and continues to follow, eventually catching Hanabi by the shoulder.

“Hey, Hanabi! Do I know you? …I mean, wait… I _do_ know you. But- Nevermind!”

Hanabi freezes for a moment, turning her head to look over her shoulder at Naruto. One look at the blank, stern-yet-curious lilac, and Naruto is immediately relieved that he guessed correctly and didn’t accidentally disturb some other random woman, or Sakura would have his head.

“Naruto?” comes Hanabi’s soft voice. “My sister said you might come. …You look like you’ve seen a-“

“Ghost? Well…” Naruto sighs and looks around, shivering before turning back to Hanabi. “Don’t worry about it. I’m sure it’s nothing now. Where’s Hinata? I was thinking that since she invited me, she might want to hang out here or something.”

Hanabi blinks very slowly. “I’m not supposed to tell you that. Where’s the fun in a masquerade ball if you know where to find what you’re looking for? That’s like having a scavenger hunt with… directions.”

Naruto deflates, groaning. “Well, you can at least tell me what she’s wearing, right? Right? Please?”

Hanabi frowns, giving Naruto another slow blink. “…I don’t think you understand how this wor-“

“PLEEEEEEEEASE?!” Naruto begs. Hanabi responds by huffing and tightly pinching Naruto’s lips together.

“You’re tipsy. And annoying. And you’re not doing a good job of convincing me that I should tell you. …Here, how about this?”

Hanabi looks over at the middle of the ballroom as the gentle quiet music begins to pick up in volume. Couples all around pair up on the floor and dance slowly to the rhythm.

Hanabi looks back at Naruto and points to the middle of the room. “Since you’re here, dance with me. If I think you’ve redeemed yourself, I might give you a little hint about where my sister is. She _is_ here and waiting for you, I’ll tell you that much.”

Naruto blinks down at Hanabi as she releases his lips. “Dance with you?”

“Yes.”

“But… aren’t you ten?”

“…I’m asking you to _dance_ , Naruto.”

“Yeah, yeah! It’s just that- …I don’t know, I just-“

“Do you want a hint or not?!”

“Alright, alright, fine!”

Naruto sighs and takes Hanabi’s hand as she extends it toward him, silently wishing he didn’t somehow piss Hinata off when he finally found her like he has the three other women he’s so far encountered. …Now he just needs to remember how to dance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for reading! Leave a kudos and a comment if you enjoyed it! :P
> 
> ~M.H.C~
> 
> May all your  
> Hearts beat with  
> Calamity!
> 
> Till next time!

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you guys enjoyed it. The next chapter will be up as soon as possible!
> 
> ~M.H.C~
> 
> May all you  
> Hearts beat with  
> Calamity!
> 
> Till next time!


End file.
